"In the first place, according to the ‘boys in the racket,’ Samoots was the most generous of them all," said a close friend. He would go to the local barbershop and buy the boys haircuts and shaves. Samoots would then ask someone to help him pick out a new suit and then buy that man one to match. "He never knew when to stop giving," another friend said, "Those who knew him said his hands were always open and he always had a smile."

But, if he wanted someone removed… "Sure," said one of his intimates, "If he wanted a guy knocked off, he’d have him knocked off, what the hell? But he was a good guy just the same."

Samoots, whose real name was Samuel Samuzzo Amatuna, had a short but colorful career in the Chicago underworld. Called the "Beau Brummel of Little Italy" by the newspapers, his rise and fall paralleled that of the Genna gang of Chicago, a family of six brothers with a ruthless reputation with whom Amatuna was once closely associated.

Site Links

About

With the purpose of writing about true crime in an authoritative, fact-based manner, veteran journalists J. J. Maloney and J. Patrick O’Connor launched Crime Magazine in November of 1998.

Their goal was to cover all aspects of true crime: from organized crime to serial killers, from capital punishment to prisons, from historical crimes to celebrity crime, from assassinations to government corruption, from justice issues to innocent cases, from crime films to books about crime. Read More